


when i could finally breathe

by huphilpuffs



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Christmas, Depression, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 15:02:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13343688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huphilpuffs/pseuds/huphilpuffs
Summary: Christmas, in all its brilliance, is exhausting.





	when i could finally breathe

**Author's Note:**

> hi guys! it's been over six months since I posted anything and I finally managed to write something I think is worth sharing, so I hope you guys enjoy!

Dan gets back to the apartment first.

He always does, desperate for the sliver of solitude after being tossed around among family members for too many days, needing the  _ quiet  _ more acutely than Phil. He arrives with bags haphazardly packed and a scowl drawing at the corners of his mouth and a weight on his shoulders so heavy he feels his spine curve with it.

There’s dog fur on his jeans from saying goodbye to Colin and guilt heavy in his stomach when he sinks onto the sofa, lets his head fall back, and  _ breathes. _

It smells empty. The familiar scent of their life having faded and settled onto cushions and neat flooring dotted with pine. Candles have been unlit for too many days, movement absent from the space, and the chill of it leeches across his skin, abnormal yet mundane.

He ignores it. Tries too.

His fingers twitch with the urge to move. To sweep the floor until not a pine needle remains and fluff up pillows so they’re warm when they sink into bed that night and rummage through cabinets to find food they won’t eat because they always have pizza the first day back.

As tempting as the desire to slip upstairs into their bedroom and burrow himself in blankets and darkness and chilled warmth until he knows with heavy certainty that he won’t escape as easily as he fell into the problem.

He hears the groan more than he feels the reverberation of it in his chest, eyes squeezed shut, one hand gripping the fabric of the sofa.

The tension dissipates as fast as it came. It always does. He stares there, silent, alone, until he forgets that he feels like a stranger in his own home.

\---

Phil comes home later. 

The door opens and closes and Dan lifts his head from the couch to watch Phil step into the lounge. He has a duffel bag draped over one arm, digging into the crook of his elbow, and a gift bag in the other. There’s a Starbucks cup in each of his hands.

“Thought we could use something warm,” he says. 

He doesn’t say that the latte is meant for Dan. That there’s two to hide that fact. That Phil knows, more than anyone, that Dan spends the days after Christmas hating how many sweets he indulged in and struggling to push himself back to healthy routine and self-care and indulgence within bounds.

The cup Phil hands him has the wrong name scrawled across white cardboard and Dan traces it with his thumb, not listening to mumbles about how the barista wrote it on the wrong one. 

He takes a sip. It’s creamy and tastes of cinnamon. When he opens his eyes again, Phil’s bags are on the floor.

There’s no rush to launch himself off the couch and into Phil’s arms. No desperate kisses as they stumble into each other. No mantra of  _ I missed you  _ breathed into an otherwise silent house.

There’s coffee.

And Phil dropping onto the couch, far enough to give Dan his space, close enough that their knees brush.

There’s moving a cushion over so the gap is closed and Dan can rest his head on Phil’s shoulder.

And easy warmth in his stomach that reminds him they don’t have to speak words for the  _ I missed you  _ to be heard.

\---

They order pizza that night.

A movie they’ve seen before plays on the TV.

Phil lights a scented candle and drags the blue and green checkered duvet to the lounge and wraps them both in it. Empty coffee cups sit on the coffee table. Pine needs are a mess all over the floor.

They don’t talk much.

The first day, they never do.

\---

Morning comes in the form of an empty bed and blurred vision, the duvet tucked in around his sides and the ghost of unfamiliarity slipping away with every breath. He can hear Phil moving around downstairs and smell coffee that tells him Phil hasn’t been up for long and take a breath that feels like home as it swirls in his lungs.

The second day is easier. Once he tears himself out of bed and tells himself indulging is good when temporary, reminds himself his body can muster what it takes to stumble around his house in pyjamas in the morning. 

Phil’s in the lounge by the time he gets downstairs. The blue and green duvet is probably back where it belongs. There’s warm team in a mug on the counter and a box of cereal sitting next to it like an invitation.

He makes himself a bowl. Grabs the cup.

Phil kisses his head when he drops onto the couch, mumbling: “Knew you wouldn’t be long,” against the messy curls of Dan’s hair.

There’s anime on the TV that day. A routine renewed so easily. He wonders how Phil does it, falls back into  _ existing  _ without struggle, without turmoil.

How he manages to bring Dan with him.

They eat sugary cereal and sip at their drinks and watch anime together and phantom knots in Dan’s chest dissipate with every breath he takes.

\---

Phil doesn’t ask.

Dan offers.

“They didn’t talk about it too much.”

He doesn’t need to say what. Phil was there in the days leading up to Christmas, watched Dan pace their home as he mumbled about the video that was brilliant to post and terrifying to face. As he’d wondered what his mother would say, face to face. And his grandmother and aunts and uncles and father and even his little brother.

If they’d say anything at all.

“Mum said she was proud of me for trying to help people, like she did on the phone,” he said. “One of my aunts asked why I decided to share, so I explained. Oh, and mum gave me a hug, too. Told me to give you one.”

And it’s true, she did. But it also gives Dan an excuse to tap Phil’s shoulder, draw closer until he’s folded in Phil’s arms. There were a lot of hugs over Christmas, but none quite compare to Phil’s. The t-shirt he’s wearing smells more like home than the flat does, even now.

_ I’m proud of you,  _ are more words that go unspoken now. He’s said them before, in broad daylight when Dan first made the video public, and in the darkness of night on days when he hadn’t quite made up his mind.

Dan lets himself be held for a moment, pulls away with a peck to Phil’s cheek and a smile he’s not faking.

\---

The puzzle comes out on the third day.

Phil loves them and Dan likes the challenge and so they strew the pieces across the sleek white of their coffee table, lay cushions on the floor, and start sorting out edge pieces. Phil sits across from the couch and Dan ruins his spine bending over his knees and they giggle and hiss at each other until the edge is made.

Dan’s managed to get half the cat done, too, and Phil has a few roses accumulated on his edge of the table when he calls breaktime.

His knees crack when he stands, mid-complaint about his legs hurting, and it must be delirium that has Dan laughing about it as much as he does. 

The post-Christmas haze breaks over puzzle pieces and laughter and Dan quipping: “Bad knees, old man?”

Phil’s toes jam into his shin. “I’m not old.”

“You get puzzles for Christmas and take breaks because your joints are sore,” comes the response. “You’ve officially reached old man status.”

There’s a huff first. Phil’s fingers dig into his palm. “Well then, guess you’re my old man husband.”

Dan’s cheeks go pink at the words. But it’s good, Phil’s eyes shining bright with easy implication.

It’s normal.

\---

The fourth day comes and Dan’s recovery from the whirlwind has him pulling on jogging pants and a jumper after his morning shower, running his fingers through his hair and splashing his face with water. It’s simple and he hates the twist of  _ you should be doing better _ in his gut.

Christmas, in all its brilliance, is exhausting.

Phil reminds him off that sometimes. Phil, who loves Christmas with every ounce of his being, who can spend a month singing along to the same songs and contemplating how much tinsel to decorate with. Phil, who spends a year looking forward to family time and gifts and mince pies and sweets.

To everything that seems to drain the very energy from Dan’s being.

He feels bad for it, for making Phil endure his anxiety, the aftermath. But his brain, however traitorous it may be, has a habit of echoing Phil’s words like the genuine promises they so often seem to be. 

A few years ago, when things were harder and Dan was more down and Phil was newer to dealing with the sadness and exhaustion and  _ brokenness  _ that came in the aftermath of the holidays, he’d settled into bed with Dan. His arms had been tentative, his hands shaking, smoothing the blanket over Dan’s chest.

It started with a hum. A mumbled: “I’m sorry.”

Even then, he hadn’t needed to explain what for. Phil could see the weight on his shoulders, perhaps more vividly than Dan allowed himself to. Phil had tried his best to be normal, routined, careful in all the trust it required to simply exist together at a time when Dan was sure that a brain so broken would surely drive people away.

“There’s no reason to be,” had been Phil’s response, a whisper. “Christmas is hard. More for you than for me.” He’d paused. One hand had clutched tight at the old monochrome duvet. The other smoothed over Dan’s unstraightened fringe. “It helps me too, to have a routine.” Another pause, a breath. “Helps me to know I’m helping you.”

Dan’s eyes snap open as he fumbles for his toothbrush, a reflection staring back at him of dimpled cheeks and eyes that look less like the life has been drained from that.

That year, his hair had been straightened because the curls made him insecure. His frame had been thinner, cheeks a little more hollow, clothing a little less warm. He’d needed Phil to drag him out of bed, force him to a routine because doing it by himself was impossible.

This year, he squeezes toothpaste onto the brush, cleans his teeth, and slips away to play Mario Kart knowing that doing so won’t be detrimental.

That he’s recovering, on every level.

\---

He takes the presents he got out that day, dragging the bag from his bedroom to the living room. Phil’s has lingered by the doorway since he first got into the house, only the puzzle dragged from within it. He goes to get that, too, brings it to the sofa just as Phil comes into the room.

Phil hasn’t changed out of his pyjamas yet, and the spread of warmth in Dan’s chest at the sight is both out of selfish pride and affection he can never quite quell.

“You ready?” asks Phil.

It always happens on a different day, this part. Some years it waits until new year, and sometimes they get through it on the first day when excited adrenaline hasn’t yet faded into anything more subdued. 

His response is a nod, reaching into the bag to draw out the first item.

They pass them back and forth. 

Some are more personal and worthy of gushing, personalized and specific and marked with evident  _ knowing.  _ Phil always has at least one such gift from his parents, and one from Martyn and Cornelia. Dan finds humor in the fact that his most touching gift is usually from Phil’s family, too. 

Others are cool, an ounce of  _ I saw this and thought of you  _ evident in the video game Dan’s brother got him, the films Phil got from an aunt. They’re to be used, not to draw at the heartstrings. Often, they set them aside with the knowledge that it’s a gift they’ll share, no matter who’s name was on the label.

And a few are impersonal. Practical, perhaps, but not worth much thought beyond the gratitude exchanged when the gifts were. The kind that Dan leaves at the bottom of the bag not out of shame, but a general understanding that socks without funny patterns don’t spark interest. That he’d rather hear about the anecdote behind Martyn’s gift from their parents than pass a box of chocolates around as though it’s up for inspection.

He almost does that with the slippers, as Phil is reading the back of a book he was gifted but thinks Dan might enjoy too. And yet his fingers sweep down for them, tear them from the plastic holding them together so he can slip them onto his feet.

It’s unfamiliar. Warm, but far from monumental.

Phil’s voice falls quiet, though. And when Dan looks up, it’s too meet happy blue eyes.

“And I’m the old man?” comes the quip.

Dan grabs a cushion and whacks Phil’s shoulder with it, watching the book fall onto the sofa between them.

\---

He tucks the slippers by his side of the bed that night.

Phil went through the day without changing out of his pyjamas.

It’s easier, four days later, to shed the guilt and expectations.

Easier to wrap himself in his half of the duvet, curl up on his side, and watch Phil’s face come into view as his eyes adjust to the darkness.

Easier to breathe as he lets himself fall asleep. 

\---

The fifth day is for talking.

Not when they first wake up. Then, Dan climbs out of bed and into comfy clothing, puts on the slippers he’s allowing himself to enjoy. They have breakfast and watch TV, enjoy the ease of sitting on the sofa together. Dan props his feet up on the coffee table, careful to avoid the puzzle they’ve left untouched since the day they took it out.

Phil turns into himself with every sip of his coffee, and Dan eats his cereal a little too quickly, and they talk about the anime they’ve been watching and games they’d like to play and nothing else.

It’s not predetermined. There’s no waking up with a lump in his throat and swirling anxiety in his chest knowing Phil will ask and he’ll have to tell. There’s no plan that drives him forward, stealing Phil’s mug and bowl to set dishes aside so he can confide about the ache the holidays always leaves in his bones. 

There’s a gap between them and Dan leaves it there,  _ needs  _ it there when he mumbles: “I’m not used to it.”

Phil closes the gap, he always does. It’s easier for him than eloquent reassurances, the soft touches laced with things he doesn’t need to say for Dan to understand.

_ I’m here for you _ , is in the warmth of his palm.

_ You can tell me anything _ , in the squeeze of Dan’s knee.

_ I love you _ , in the drift of his thumb across Dan’s leg.

He swallows, a hand falling to rest over Phil’s, cling to him a little tighter as he continues: “They’re not used to it.” A pause. “Which might be my fault, I guess. I keep changing things on them.”

“How so?”

Dan shrugs. Phil doesn’t need the words, but they fall, clumsy, from his tongue. “I was always kind of the weird one, And then I was the uni drop out. Then the YouTube one. Then I was comfortable enough to talk about things and became—” his voice hitches “—the queer one. And now I’m the depressed one and how can I expect them to keep up when I don’t even  _ tell  _ them.”

On any other day, Phil would ramble about how Dan doesn’t  _ need  _ to tell them. There’s no obligation to explain, to spill his story to people who love him without knowing him. He’d joke about how his family found out he liked boys and how they put up with him being weird and if that’s what Dan wants from his family, he doesn’t have to accomodate their endless need to  _ know.  _

The thing is, Dan likes that they  _ know. _

He just wishes they didn’t ask for more every time he gave them a piece of him.

Phil doesn’t push him for all that. He squeezes Dan’s leg again, slips a little closer. 

“I’m just tired,” says Dan. “It’s exhausting, needing to justify yourself all the time.”

The gap closes then. The cushion between them sinks beneath Phil’s weight and an arm loops itself around Dan’s shoulders, drawing him closer. He feels small, buried against Phil’s side, circles being rubbed against his back until his mind stops replaying the conversations he had over and over and  _ over. _

“I know,” says Phil.

He doesn’t say:  _ You don’t need to justify yourself to me. _

That’s understood. It’s why Phil’s presence is easy to live with. Why it feels so perfectly like  _ home. _

\---

Dinner comes and words needing to be spoken stay tangled together in Dan’s brain as they cook in silence and drift around shared space with coordination unplanned and meticulously practiced. Dan chops the veggies as Phil prepares the chicken. Phil stirs while Dan seasons. They eat the stir fry at the table that usually goes untouched. The lack of words to hear crawls up Dan’s spine.

It goes with quick rinses and a decision that dishes can be done later. Silence stretches and Dan is waiting for it to spring back in a stumbling set of sentences that make no sense but should. That aren’t being said but need to be.

Phil doesn’t push. He’s polite and quiet and kind and Dan loves it a lot but not when he can see the weight on Phil’s shoulders as he tries to accommodate Dan. Never when Dan has to watch him suffer because Dan’s brain is more broken so Phil’s must endure the discomfort.

It’s caused problems before. When Phil refused to push him and Dan just couldn’t catch up long enough to meet the needs that were never put into words. But they’re better now, they have been.

Dan’s mostly recovered and Phil needs reassurance and it’s that thought that has him reaching down to tangle their hands, dragging Phil back into the lounge.

The thing is, Phil leaves things at the bottom of his gift bag, too. Socks and sweets and one gift that Dan knows he got because it was handed to them both, and yet hasn’t seen since they got home.

Phil lingers behind him when he reaches into the bag, clutches his fingers when he pulls out the frame.

The picture inside is from Florida. The trip had been full of unfamiliar territory and Dan slipping too deep into his thoughts because somehow they were safer than the risk of fucking everything up. But also with kind smiles and family nights and sharing too much with the internet without the buzzing awareness of boundaries holding him back.

He’d gone into it shaking and unsure.

He’d left with smile widened by the sense of  _ belonging  _ the Lesters always offered him.

In the photo, they’re a family. And when Dan passes it to Phil, watches him set it among their collections of potted plants and terrarium and photographs of memories for them, alone, he hopes Phil can feel the same warmth that spreads through Dan’s chest.

Just in case, though, he pulls Phil back, presses a quick kiss to the jut of his cheekbone.

“It wasn’t too much,” he promises. “I love being around your family.” 

There’s a pause. He kisses Phil’s cheek again because the smile that’s spread across his face is as beautiful as the memories of brilliant newness and easy companionship that carried him from the Isle of Man back to London.

“It was one of the easiest parts.”

\---

The fifth day is for tossing and turning in bed and replaying every word he spoke and every moment that influenced it in his mind. It’s for clutching at bedsheets and burying his face in his pillow and squeezing his eyes shut and remembered in vivid detail the non-moments that he feels more than he remembers.

It’s wrong, he thinks, that being around Phil’s family is easier than being around his own. But the discomfort and sense of being a foreigner in his own mind never stems from Kath or Nigel or Martyn or Cornelia.

He rolls over, crushes his other cheek into his pillow.

The thing about the Lesters is that they don’t question him, don’t examine him as though searching for signs of normalcy or evidence for all the abnormal bits of him. They don’t think of him as weird, don’t quiz him on his intentions, ask him to describe his entire state of being as though things will fall into place if he does.

He kicks one leg free of the duvet, only to get cold and pull it back over his body.

Maybe it’s because of Phil. They got used to his uniqueness so Dan coming into their lives wasn’t a stranger bundled in new things they don’t understand.

He sighs, rolls over again.

Perhaps it’s just that the Lesters approach things with the same  _ I don’t need to understand you to love you  _ attitude that Phil’s had during Dan’s existential crises and rants. Or-

“You’re thinking too loudly,” says Phil. His arm reaches out, drifts along Dan’s bare side to lock at his stomach. “I’m trying to sleep.”

Dan huffs, even as his body curls into Phil’s, mind quiets at the touch. “Old man.”

The response comes, first, as a hum. Then: “Still makes you an old man with me.”

He smiles, rolls his eyes, realizes that even though his thoughts aren’t silent, he can deal with them now. And after a while, he falls asleep.

\---

The sixth day is New Year’s Eve.

The apartment smells like home again, like the scented candle Phil lit in the lounge that morning. Dan pulls on skinny jeans to accompany his jumper, leaves his slippers on while he’s in the house. They have cereal and hot drinks for breakfast and put the gift bags away.

Since the day Phil swept, the floor has, again, been covered in pine. The puzzle is still incomplete on the coffee table.

The sixth day is for going out.

It’s not getting groceries delivered to the front door or ordering takeout. Not wallowing in post-Christmas exhaustion, or curling up with duvets until he can breathe again. It’s putting on proper shoes and doing his hair and grabbing a box of chocolates he got from an aunt before slipping out the front door.

Phil turns to him before they leave, asks: “Are you up for this?”

Dan’s responding nod is honest.

Come tomorrow, the days will be new and a year will be fresh and there will be time to consider working again, to evaluate everything 2017 brought with it and consider what to change for 2018. There will be time to play new games and make new content and tweet about silly things and share new facets of their life.

But the sixth day is for going over to Bryony and Wirrow’s.

It’s for exchanging gifts and eating chips and half-watching a movie while they play a board game and sip at their drinks and laugh.

Dan kisses Phil at midnight.

His sleepy smile, he finds, is effortless.


End file.
